Can AI-Enabled Thermostats Create a 'Virtual Power Plant' in Texas?

Renew Home says they're building a 'virtual power plant' in Texas by 'enabling homes to easily reduce and shift the timing of energy use.' Thursday they announced a 10-year project distributing hundreds of thousands of smart thermostats to customers of Texas-based power utility NRG Energy, starting next spring. (Bloomberg calls them 'AI-enabled thermostats that use Alphabet Inc.'s Google Cloud technology.') The ultimate goal? 'Create a nearly 1-gigawatt, AI-powered virtual power plant' — equivalent to 1.9 million solar panels, enough to power about 200,000 homes during peak demand.

One NRG executive touted the move as 'cutting-edge, AI-driven solutions that will bolster grid resilience and contribute to a more sustainable future.'

[Residential virtual power plants] work by aggregating numerous, small-scale distributed energy resources like HVAC systems controlled by smart thermostats and home batteries and coordinating them to balance supply and demand... NRG, in partnership with Renew Home, plans to offer Vivint and Nest smart thermostats, including professional installation, at no cost to eligible customers across NRG's retail electricity providers and plans. These advanced thermostats make subtle automatic HVAC adjustments to help customers shift their energy use to times when electricity is less constrained, less expensive, and cleaner... Over time, the parties expect to add devices like batteries and electric vehicles to the virtual power plant, expanding energy savings opportunities for customers...

Through the use of Google Cloud's data, analytics, and AI technology, NRG will be able to do things like better predict weather conditions, forecast wind and solar generation output, and create predictive pricing models, allowing for more efficient production and ultimately ensuring the home energy experience is seamless for customers.
Google Cloud will also offer 'its AI and machine learning to determine the best time to cool or heat homes,' reports Bloomberg, 'based on a household's energy usage patterns and ambient temperatures.'

It was less than a year ago that Renew Home was formed when Google spun off the load-shifting service for its 'Google Nest' thermostats, which merged with load-shift management startup OhmConnect. Bloomberg describes this week's announcement as 'Three of the biggest names in US home energy automation... coming together to offer some relief to the beleaguered Texas electrical grid.'

But they point out that 1 gigawatt is roughly 1% of the record summer demand seen in Texas this year. Still, 'The entire industry has been built to serve the peak load on the hottest day of the year,' said Rasesh Patel, president of NRG's consumer unit. 'This allows us to be a lot more smarter about demand in shaving the peak.'

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